


Tackling the Storm

by maxride003



Category: Rooster Teeth/Achievement Hunter/Funhaus RPF
Genre: Gen, minecraft au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-28
Updated: 2015-12-28
Packaged: 2018-05-10 00:54:07
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,175
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5562520
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/maxride003/pseuds/maxride003
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A storm gathers while the lads are out in a mining trip, and with it comes waves of monsters that threaten the young inhabitants of Achievement City. It's up to the gents to find and help them before something horrible befalls the lads.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Tackling the Storm

**Author's Note:**

  * For [thegreenpuma88](https://archiveofourown.org/users/thegreenpuma88/gifts).



> This is a request from thegreenpuma88, and a story that was quite fun to do. Enjoy!

“Why is there so much shit on the ground?” Michael hollered, his voice echoing clearly through the large cavern they had been exploring. Random items lay on the ground at Michael’s feet, forming a small pile of sticks, cobblestone, flowers, seeds, and even a few pieces of unsmelted iron.

“I ran out of room in my bag,” Gavin complained, popping around a corner as quietly and suddenly as the creeper he was dressed as. It was always a little surprising when he managed it – Michael swore that Gavin had two left feet and he was as gangly as an Enderman. It was normally more likely that he’d trip and fall down a chasm than sneak up on someone. But he had his moments.

“Fuck!” Michael cried in surprise, pulling at the sword hanging from his belt loop. The carefully crafted diamond weapon was out of the loop and pointed at Gavin in an instant, and Gavin yelped, backing up and running into the stone wall. “Dammit, Gavin, stop doing that!”

“Sorry, Michael,” Gavin pouted as Michael lowered his sword again. “I didn’t mean to…”

“Just be glad it wasn’t an actual creeper,” Ray laughed, coming along behind Gavin, a half-eaten pork chop in one hand and his pickaxe dangling from the other.

The lads really were an odd group, all together. Somehow, Ray had managed to go the entire trip through the caves without dirtying up his suit. The dark suit jacket still looked pristine, as if he had just put it on, the shirt beneath had remained white, and the rose tucked into his lapel hadn’t yet started to wilt. A couple spots of dirt streaked across his face, and a few small water stains marred his glasses, but for the most part he’d come away quite clean. Michael wondered if he’d even done any mining in the entire time they’d been underground.

Gavin, on the other hand, was a complete fucking mess. The ends of the scarf wrapped around his neck were scuffed, singed, and covered in mud. The knees of his pants were worn and dirty, he had a few scrapes on his face, and he was only wearing one tall boot. Yet, despite his general disheveled appearance, his bow and quiver still looked perfectly intact, as did the creeperskin cloak he had draped around his shoulders. The hood of his cloak was raised, the creeper face half covering his own, and his brown hair stuck out from underneath.

Michael shoved his sword back into his belt and adjusted the sleeves of his bear-eared hoodie. The hood was pulled up over his curly hair, to keep out the chill that existed in most of the caves. The bottoms of his yellow pants were tucked into his boots, and his blue backpack sat comfortably on his shoulders. Ray and Gavin held bags of their own – Gavin’s was slung from one shoulder, the strap settled across his body, and Ray’s was a small pouch that he kept tucked into an inside jacket pocket.

“How did you run out of room already?” Michael asked, kneeling down to sift through the pile of things on the ground. “You cleared out your bag five fucking minutes ago!”

“I found some gold!” Gavin said, digging around in his bag and pulling out a handful of unsmelted gold ore. The metal pieces glinted in the light of the torch Michael had set into the wall further down the cave. “We could make another block for a tower with all this!”

Michael rolled his eyes, shoving the iron into his bag. It disappeared inside easily – even though he had a lot of random crap himself, he’d dropped a considerable amount of cobblestone into lava earlier and cleared up a little bit of space in his bag. “How’s your bag looking, Ray?” he asked, throwing away some seeds that had found their way into his bag. He’d probably grabbed them up from Gavin’s pile of unwanted shit on accident.

“It’s small, leather, has a rose pattern on it,” Ray said mildly, pulling said bag from his pocket and holding it up for Michael to see. “I’m sure you’ve seen it before.” Michael scoffed and rolled his eyes, and Ray laughed, stuffing the rest of his pork chop in his mouth. “But I’ve got all the redstone and iron Ryan wanted, so I’m good.”

“What’s Ryan need all that for anyway?” Gavin asked curiously.

“I don’t think I want to know,” Michael sighed, shaking his head. “Just don’t help him test whatever it is this time.”

“I didn’t know the whole room was full of redstone,” Gavin complained. “That roulette game was crazy. And it hurt a lot.”

“What did you expect? He’s the guy with a cow trapped under the floor of his house!” Ray laughed, tucking his bag away again and slinging his pickaxe over his shoulder.

Gavin shrugged, following Michael as Michael started to wander out of the cave. “Yeah, but Ryan’s not like that all the time,” he pointed out. “I thought he needed help with something nicer.”

Michael barked out a laugh, grinning at Gavin over his shoulder. “No way. You’re like his fucking testing dummy. You’ve respawned so often from helping him that I don’t even think you can feel it anymore!”

“Well, maybe Ryan does make me respawn a lot, but you do too, Michael,” Gavin accused with a frown. “You blew me up just last month! And that respawn hurt loads.”

“To be fair, Michael did tell you there was TNT and that you shouldn’t hit it, but you still shot it with an arrow from five feet away,” Ray scoffed.

“I didn’t think an arrow would blow it up! But why was there TNT there anyway?” Gavin griped.

“Because I was clearing land for a game!” Michael said. “I told you that when I put the TNT down. It’s your own damn fault that you had to respawn.”

“But Michael,” Gavin whined, drawing out Michael’s name far longer than he probably needed to. “My boi. How was I supposed to know it worked like that?”

“Cause you’re the asshole wearing the fucking creeper skin! You should know how TNT works, Gavin!” Michael hollered, stepping out into the field they’d found the cave in and scowling at Gavin over his shoulder.

Behind Gavin, Ray was laughing loudly, and Michael was a little afraid he’d bash himself in the head with his own pickaxe throwing his head back like that. But his laughter, coupled with Gavin blubbering out nonsense words and opening and closing his mouth like a fish in an effort to voice his protests, made Michael slowly grin and then bust out laughing himself.

“Michael,” Gavin whined, having to raise his voice over Ray and Michael’s laughter. “Making me respawn isn’t funny, Michael.” Despite his words, a smile spread across his own face, and he looked back and forth between Ray and Michael. “Mingy pricks,” Gavin chuckled. Michael had no answer besides laughing harder as he started back home again.

Halfway over the hills that separated Achievement City from the cave entrance, a spot of water fell behind Michael’s glasses and directly into his eye. He scowled up at the sky, which had steadily darkened with thick clouds that rolled quickly overhead. A storm was brewing, and Michael picked up the pace. They didn’t need to get caught in the false night that storms created. Michael was pretty damn good at fighting off the occasional skeleton or zombie when they ventured out at night, but storms increased mob numbers significantly.

“Ow!” Gavin screamed a second later, as the rain grew from sprinkling to a steady rainfall. Michael turned around as an arrow whizzed past his head. Another arrow was yanked from Gavin’s shoulder by Ray as Gavin brought his own bow to bear on a skeleton lurking nearby.

The skeleton’s white, bony face grinned out from between the trees as it loosed another arrow, this one flying toward Ray. Ray yelled and dropped to the ground, pulling Gavin’s arm and making his arrow shoot directly between the skeleton’s ribs.

“What the fuck is an arrow going to do to it?” Michael yelled, pulling his sword from his belt and charging at the skeleton. It turned its blank, dark eye sockets toward Michael and let another arrow go before Michael closed the distance. The arrow rocketed forward and lodged itself in his leg, making Michael roar and stumble within striking range.

The first swipe with the sword glanced off the skeleton’s rib cage as Michael tried to regain his balance, but the second removed the skeleton’s head clean from its spine. The diamond of Michael’s sword cleaved through the bone with minimal trouble, and the skeleton crumpled into worthless bones before slowly fading like most creatures did when they were killed. A couple bones were left behind, but Michael left them where they sat, more worried about the arrow sticking out of his leg.

“Stupid skeletons,” Ray griped, putting the arrow he’d pulled from Gavin into the creeper-clad lad’s quiver. Gavin nodded his agreement, looking at his arm with a grimace, a piece of chicken hanging out of his mouth.

“Yeah. Fucking rain,” Michael grumbled, pulling the arrow out of his leg sharply. It stung, but the injury wasn’t too bad. Some rest and enough food would fix it up in a short time, and they weren’t too far out from the city.

A rumble of thunder roared through the sky, coupled with a flash of lightning that brightened the hills as if it were the middle of the day. The lads looked up at the sky together, and Michael’s vision became spotty and hazy and his glasses were quickly covered in water that was starting to soak through his hoodie and into the shirt he wore beneath.

“Maybe we should go,” Ray suggested, and he looked like a drowned puppy. His nicely kept suit was now soaked and hanging from his thin frame, the flower drooped sadly, and his hair had flopped into his eyes. Gavin was the only one who didn’t seem overly put out by the sudden downpour. The creeper skin was waterproof, to a point, and so he was quite fine. Except for the mud seeping into his sock, which he seemed a little grossed out by, if the fact that he was hopping around on one foot was any indication.

“Yeah, my foot’s all gross,” Gavin whined.

“Man, yeah, I couldn’t imagine how that feels,” Ray muttered, brushing his hair out of his face and trying to dry his glasses off on his wet shirt.

Michael snorted out a laugh, tossing the arrow from his leg over to Gavin. Gavin squawked and fumbled with it, dropping it on the ground and then scooping it up with an embarrassed smile. The arrow joined the others in Gavin’s quiver, and Michael followed after Ray as Ray hurried through the trees. Michael’s leg hurt a bit, but he forced himself to walk steady and even. The other two would just start to worry if he started limping.

The storm only worsened with every step, the rain coming down in sheets until it was damn near impossible to see. Ray paused when his foot slipped in the muddy slope and looked back, squinting through the water. He looked around at Michael, and then jumped back with a shout to move that was almost drowned out by a clap of thunder and the wind that had come up out of nowhere a few minutes before.

Michael didn’t even hesitate. He scrambled to the side, grabbing Gavin’s scarf and dragging him along as an explosion joined the thunder behind him, mud and grass and small rocks flying into Michael. The blast knocked him down, and Gavin fell beside him with a shout.

“You guys okay?” Ray hollered, sliding down the hill beside them and reaching down to help Gavin up. Gavin accepted his hand readily and Michael looked behind him, where a crater had appeared from the creeper explosion. “Come on, there’s more mobs coming, we gotta go!”

Ray pulled Michael up from the ground and Michael caught sight of a few zombies shuffling their way through the trees, and the arrow from another skeleton shot past his ear. The chattering of a spider drew Michael’s attention up, and he drew his sword as it leapt down from a tree. Michael jumped back and slashed, striking the spider between its eyes and making it collapse to the ground.

“Let’s go!” Michael cried, leading the way with his sword out, ready to fight back anything that wanted a piece of them.

He could hear the mobs all around them. Spiders chattered in the grass and on the treetops, zombies groaned, another creeper exploded and nearly took Ray’s leg with it, and arrows kept coming. Michael did his best to keep the mobs off of them, but it was damn near impossible to do it perfectly, and he was only taking the brunt of the damage.

Gavin was jumped by a couple zombies and more tears had been added to his already battered clothing, cuts washed clean by the rain. Ray had a spider land on his head while he was trying to get away from a skeleton, and he hadn’t bothered to mess with the arrow in his shoulder, more focused on the festering spider bite on his hand.

Michael, however, had taken on nearly everything. Three more arrows had found their way into Michael’s body, and he wasn’t even trying to hide his limp anymore. It would have been a useless exercise. Two spider bites, one on his leg and another on his neck, burned and prickled with the spider venom. His left arm hung limp at his side, the result of a zombie attack, and he had mild burns along his side from finding himself too close to a creeper’s blast.

“Gavin, there’s a zombie coming up!” Michael hollered, his back pressed against a tree as he kicked out at an approaching spider, his foot smacking solidly against its glowing red eyes. He could see the zombie shuffling its way closer, arms extended, and a low, sickly groan rising from his throat that was very difficult to actually make out.

An arrow flew out of the sheets of rain and lodged itself in the zombie’s head. The monster halted, stumbled, and then fell forward, starting to fade away before it hit the ground. The spider in front of Michael grabbed hold of his boot, biting down with its strong jaws, and Michael brought his sword straight down with a snarl.

The spider was pinned to the ground through the head, Michael’s sword nicking the front of his boot and almost spearing his own toe with the diamond tip. It let out a high pitched squeal and then stopped moving, and Michael shook it off his foot quickly.

“I think we should hole up somewhere until this storm dies down. We’re not gonna make it back to Achievement City like this,” Ray said, nearly shouting over the sound of the storm as he popped up next to Michael’s shoulder. Michael nearly spun around and impaled him, since mobs had been appearing left and right just as quickly, but the suit kept him from doing so. As far as Michael knew, there weren’t any mobs that wore suits.

“There’s a cavern not too far from here,” Gavin said, appearing at Michael’s other side and pointing with his bow. “If we can make it there, we can at least keep these guys off us.”

Michael nodded, following Gavin as Gavin led the way, away from Achievement City. Gavin knew the surrounding area almost as well at Geoff, when he really thought about it, and Michael just had to hope that Gavin was actually remembering correctly this time.

Apparently Gavin’s memory was working quite well, because the dark entrance of the cavern mouth appeared through the rain after only a minute or two of walking. A flash of green moved around the entrance and Michael paused. “There’s a creeper there,” he said, grabbing Gavin’s scarf and stopping him mid-step. “I’ll lure him away, you guys get inside and try to get some wood up to keep the mobs out.”

“Michael, just leave him be. We can run past him, no problem,” Ray said, but Michael ignored him, charging toward the creeper. If they left the monster be, it would just have a chance to sneak up on them later. It was easier if they just killed it now.

Michael shouted to draw the creeper’s attention and its eerie black eyes fixed on him. It glided forward on its four tiny legs, its body swaying slightly with its movement. Michael lunged forward and struck it, leaping back as its body swelled in near-explosion.

Out of the corner of his eye, Michael saw Gavin and Ray rush for the cave entrance as Michael kited the creeper away. They made it inside without incident, and Ray started pulling wood and stone out of his bag, throwing them up to make a rough barricade between the lads and the mobs.

Gavin started to help as Michael lunged forward at the creeper again and then danced away. Another good blow would destroy the monster, as long as he didn’t get blown up along with it. Michael saw Gavin look up from the wood in his hands, and then his eyes widened and he started to yell as Michael’s back ran into something.

Spinning around, Michael met the eyes of another swaying creeper. It hissed menacingly and swelled, and Michael yelled, scrambling away from the two monsters as they both exploded behind him.

\-------

“They should’ve been back by now, shouldn’t they?” Jack asked, and Geoff looked up to see him pacing the large, single room that made up Geoff’s house. The storm raged outside, but the sound was muffled by the stone walls of Geoff’s tower. Rain smacked loudly against the iron door, and lightning flashed through the windows in the door, but it was warm and comfortable inside.

“They could still be in the mines,” Ryan pointed out. He had built a furnace inside Geoff’s house, despite Geoff’s protests that he didn’t need a furnace inside when there was a whole bank outside. But Ryan did have a valid point when he’d said that the storm would kind of keep him from keeping the furnaces lit. At the moment, he was cooking up all the meat he’d gathered, from literally every single animal they had passed. Geoff was sure that the pouch hanging from his checkered kilt was just full of raw meat.

“Do you really think they’d spend that long in one place? I’m sure if they were still in the mine, one of them would have respawned in their beds by now,” Geoff said, wandering across the room to look out the door.

“That’s what I was thinking,” Jack agreed, stepping up beside Geoff. His helmet dangled from his hand, and he reached up to run his other hand through his thick red beard. He had to have been cold wearing only a T-shirt, but he never complained, even running through snowy tundras.

Geoff nodded, taking a quick inventory of his things. His armor was still solidly connected, each forest green piece firmly in place. He’d set his helmet aside somewhere and he spun in place to find it. In a large, mostly empty room, it wasn’t too hard, and he spotted it lying on the ground near Ryan. And then he remembered he’d thrown it at Ryan when Ryan was first building the crafting table and furnace he was crouched in front of.

“Hey, bring me my helmet, will you? We need to go find these assholes,” Geoff barked, his voice echoing through the large house. Ryan looked up, frowning as he adjusted his bowtie. His suit jacket and kilt were spotted with blood from the animals he’d killed that day, and he still had a couple streaks across his face that he hadn’t washed off yet. It didn’t help his “But I’m not really that crazy, guys” argument.

“I just put these pork chops in, Geoff!” he griped, gesturing to the furnace. “Besides, I don’t think they’re in that much trouble. Michael’s with them, right?”

“You realize Michael’s the one who once had to respawn because he stabbed himself with his own sword on accident, right? And he’s fallen into lava almost as often as Gavin. And he has a bad habit of suffocating in gravel. I don’t think he’s going to be able to keep them away from any danger,” Jack pointed out.

Ryan considered for a moment, tilting his head back and forth in thought, before he finally nodded and pushed himself upright. As grumpy and aloof as he acted, Geoff knew he’d do anything to keep the lads safe (provided he wasn’t the one putting them in danger). Ryan threw a few pieces of beef he’d already cooked up back into his pouch, grabbed Geoff’s helmet, and brushed his kilt clean of dirt.

“You guys got weapons and food, right?” Jack asked, putting his helmet on and throwing the visor down so his face was obscured by the mirrored plastic.

“Always,” Ryan said with a smile, as thunder crashed and lightning brightened the area just inside the door. “Though if I have to go out in that, and the lads are just hiding out in the cave system, I might just kill them myself.”

Jack turned toward Geoff as Geoff grabbed his own helmet away from Ryan and jammed it on his head, his vision turning yellow because of the tinted visor. “Can we just leave him here?” Jack asked, his voice muffled through his helmet.

“I’m not leaving Ryan alone in the city. I’m scared of what I’d come back to,” Geoff muttered, and Ryan grimaced, placing a hand over his heart.

“Ow, Geoff. Your lack of faith hurts,” he said pitifully, his eyes widening in a puppy dog pout.

Geoff snorted and shook his head, slamming a hand down on the button to open his front door. “The last time I left you alone here, the center of the city blew up, Jack’s pigs were slaughtered, and Gavin complained to me for weeks about his destroyed victory room,” Geoff pointed out. Wind blasted into the house through the door, driving rain in with it, and Geoff grimaced. He hated going out in storms, but the lads weren’t giving him much choice.

He knew the cave they had gone to explore. He and Gavin had found it a few days earlier, when they’d been looking around for a place to put their newest building. They had gone into it a short ways, just so that they knew it continued more than a few feet, and Geoff had sent the lads out to fully explore it nearly a full day before. Jack was right. They should have returned by now.

Lights shone weakly from the buildings lining the city center, torches left burning to keep the lads’ houses warm and inviting for when they returned. Past that was darkness and rain, and Geoff pulled his diamond sword from the slim container built into the waist piece of his armor.

It didn’t take long for them to run into the mobs that had come out with the storm. But they had a Ryan on their side, and he was thrilled any time Geoff actually gave him permission to go on a killing spree.

In the dark and the rain, it was a little more difficult for Geoff to remember where the cave was, but he thought he was leading them the right way. The mobs coming at them were relentless, and the gents kept having to pause to fight off skeletons, zombies, and spiders, while creepers tried to stalk them and come up behind them.

Geoff’s armor helped to keep arrows out of his skin and spiders from sinking their fangs into him, though he didn’t manage to get through the trees without injury. A zombie cut into his skin at his elbow, where his armor bent, and a spider landed on his head so hard that he’d seen stars and Geoff was concerned about getting the helmet back off since it had likely been dented.

He was all set to plow on all the way to the cave system, despite the pouring rain that was making Jack shiver uncontrollably and the mobs coming around from behind every tree, but Jack stopped him with an arm thrown across his chest. “There’s a light over there,” he shouted, pointing through the trees and to a hillside.

Geoff squinted, his tinted visor making it a little more difficult to see, but he thought he saw what Jack was pointing to. Through the trees, a faint light glowed out from a part of the hill that almost looked like it was made of wood.

“Come on!” Ryan called, already making his way over and gesturing to the hill with his sword. Geoff followed after him, stumbling through the trees and looking around warily for any more monsters that had an interest in their blood.

The edge of the hill was, in fact, made of wood and bits of stone, with one hole that the light leaked from set up high. Ryan pulled an axe from his pouch, throwing his iron sword inside in return, and struck at the wooden barricade.

Within a couple solid swings, he had a space large enough to fit through cleared out, and Ryan shoved the axe back in his pouch as Geoff and Jack pushed their way inside.

“Geoff!” Gavin shouted before Geoff was even fully inside. Geoff looked around, catching sight of the lads, and his heart leapt to his throat at the sight of them.

Gavin sat against the cave wall, cradling his arm to his chest. It was scratched and bloody, and Geoff noticed he also had only one shoe and sock on. The other sock had been discarded and his bare foot was likewise bruised and bloodied, though probably from walking on it rather than a fight. His quiver was also full of arrows that didn’t have his specific green fletching, and looked like the arrows of skeletons. The number of them was a little worrying, as were the holes in Gavin’s shirt.

Ray sat nearby, his head leaning against a rock and his eyes closed. An arrow still stuck out of his shoulder, and his hand was swollen and discolored. A spider bite oozed in the middle of the swelling, and his suit was torn and battered, though Geoff couldn’t tell how many other injuries he’d sustained since the blood wouldn’t show on his dark suit.

Michael, however, was the one that worried Geoff the most. He was sprawled on the ground, eyes closed and his chest rising and falling in an odd rhythm. Cuts covered his arms and legs, slashing through his clothing. A few spider bites had swelled and were oddly colored like Ray’s, and burns covered his face. His glasses were broken and had been set aside, along with his sword.

“Holy shit. What the hell happened?” Geoff demanded, falling to his knees beside Michael and looking at the lads worriedly. He tried to pull his helmet off, only managed to scrape up his scalp in the process, and he gave up quickly. He’d take the time to get it off later, when there wasn’t a pressing matter that needed his attention.

“We got caught in the storm,” Gavin said, staring at Michael anxiously. “There were loads of mobs running around.”

“Michael tried to fight them all,” Ray muttered, his words a little slurred.

“Geoff, they’re poisoned. We need to get them back home. Did you guys not have any food?” Jack asked, crouching beside Ray, who slowly shook his head.

“We ran out before the storm even really hit. Ray gave me the last piece of chicken when we left the cave,” Gavin said.

Ryan scoffed and dug out some of the food from his bag, shoving it at Gavin and throwing some more in Ray’s direction. “That was stupid,” he said, pulling Gavin upright. Gavin whimpered and winced, leaning heavily against Ryan, but he was at least standing. With any luck, he’d be able to make it back to the city with only a little help. Geoff would have preferred to just let them rest up here, where it was warm and safe and free of mobs, but he didn’t think Michael would make it without more help. And they hadn’t brought enough to help him on the spot.

“Didn’t think it’d rain,” Ray muttered.

“Had it been two days?” Gavin asked, and Ryan groaned.

“That’s not actually how weather works, Gavin!” Ryan snapped, and Geoff let them have the stupid argument about the rain cycle while he tried to get Michael to eat something before they left. Michael barely stirred, except to frown and lift his hand to swat at Geoff’s, and Geoff grimaced.

“We gotta go, guys,” Jack insisted, pulling Ray up and taking most of his weight as Ray swayed on his feet. “We have some milk for the poison back home, don’t we, Geoff?”

Geoff shrugged, working on picking Michael up without losing his balance. “I’m not sure… We should? But I mean, Edgar can give us some if we need it, right?”

Ryan looked around at them, attention flicking between each of them as a frown formed on his face. “I guess. But no one else touches Edgar. I don’t trust you all,” he said suspiciously.

Geoff shook his head, standing up with Michael, and he looked around at their sad looking group. “We have to move fast. Just hurry past the monsters if you can. We need to get back to the city quick as dicks, and I don’t think anyone here has a free hand left for fighting.”

None of the others argued, and Ryan and Gavin led the way, since they were the most able-bodied pair of them all.

For the most part, Geoff’s fear of mobs wasn’t really an issue by the time they got out. The thunder and lightning had dissipated, the rain had faded to a light sprinkle, and the light of the sun streamed through the thick clouds overhead. The beams of light pushed back the monsters, with the exception of creepers, and as long as they stayed in the light and hurried out of the skeletons’ range, they were fine.

Getting back to Achievement City was a lot easier than going out to find the lads. Ryan led them all to Michael’s house, and then left Gavin there to hurry back to his own house. Geoff laid Michael out on his bed, while Jack knelt down with Ray against the wall. Gavin would heal up alright after he slept and had more to eat, and Ray could maybe get through it without a respawn if Ryan brought the milk by quickly, but Michael was the real worry.

“Does he have any mushrooms in his chest?” Geoff demanded, turning to Jack. Jack paused for a second in tending to Ray, and then spun around to dig through Michael’s large chest. A moment later, he pulled out a handful of mushrooms and a battered wooden bowl with a matching spoon. The mushrooms were smashed into a quick and dirty mush, and then Jack passed the bowl over to Geoff.

“Come on, Michael. You gotta eat so you don’t respawn,” Geoff muttered, pushing a spoonful of mashed mushrooms at Michael’s mouth. They joked about respawning all the time, threatened to make one of the others go through it if they were being annoyed, tried to guess who the next person to respawn would be and how. But when it came down to it, having to watch someone go through the respawn process was horrible. Respawning was painful, as every single one of them knew, and none of them really wished that on any of the others.

Geoff let out a breath he didn’t know he was holding when Michael blearily accepted the stew and swallowed it weakly. He had finished the bowl by the time Ryan returned with two small buckets of milk in hand, but Michael hadn’t yet fully opened his eyes. He’d opened them briefly, looked at Geoff, and gave a faint smile before they closed again.

“Drink this,” Ryan demanded, giving one of the buckets to Ray and passing the other to Geoff. He looked at Michael worriedly as Geoff wiped off the mushroom spoon and scooped up some milk instead. Geoff was only able to help Michael swallow a few spoonfuls before Michael stiffened and let out a pained hiss from between his teeth.

“Shit, Michael?” Jack said, immediately moving over to the bedside. 

“You just have to drink the milk and eat and you’ll be okay,” Gavin blurted out anxiously. “Come on, boi, you’re fine. You’re Mogar, the great warrior, you don’t respawn from a couple lousy monsters!”

Michael let out a heavy breath, relaxing and slumping against the bed. He slowly shook his head, and Geoff tried to get him to drink more of the milk, but he wouldn’t take it.

“He’s not eating anymore,” Geoff said, his voice cracking in his worry.

Ryan shook his head, yanking the blankets out from underneath Michael and laying them nicely over the lad. “There’s not much more we can do. He’s taken too much damage,” Ryan pointed out.

Ray grimaced, tossing aside his empty milk bucket and shuffling closer to the bed. The swelling in his hand was slowly going down, his skin tone returning to normal, and Jack had removed the arrow from his arm. He had a piece of beef in hand that he was nibbling on, though he probably needed a good night’s rest to fully recover. “He shouldn’t have gone after that stupid creeper,” Ray muttered angrily.

“He was just trying to help,” Gavin pointed out, his words soft and pitiful. Jack adjusted the pillow under Michael’s head and pulled his hood more comfortably over his hair. Michael groaned, his eyebrows drawn in pain, and Geoff bit his lip. He hated seeing any of his friends like this, but it was somehow worse with the lads.

With the extent of Michael’s untreated injuries, the respawn process didn’t take long. He squirmed and shouted a couple of times before falling very still and silent beneath his blanket. Moments later, his form became blurry and rough around the edges, until he disappeared entirely, leaving only his blue backpack in his place. Geoff watched the bed with bated breath, as he knew the others were, too. No one knew if respawning was endless, if they could keep doing it forever. There was always the worry that a person’s respawn could be their last.

It took a handful of seconds, which was a handful more than what Geoff wanted, before Michael appeared back in bed. His clothing was undamaged, his glasses repaired, his injuries gone, and he lifted a hand to his head as he blinked his eyes open.

“Fuck… Don’t let me do that again, okay?” Michael muttered, and Geoff slumped where he sat, burying his face in his hands.

“Michael!” Gavin screamed happily, and Geoff looked back up to see Gavin launch himself at the bed, tackling Michael back down onto the pillows when Michael tried to sit up. Gavin immediately seemed to regret his decision, leaping away again with a shout and a hand flying up to one of his own injuries, but he was beaming nonetheless.

“You asshole,” Ray griped, turning away from Michael and crossing his arms over his chest. “You had us all worried!”

Ryan smiled and tousled Michael’s hair, making Michael shout out a protest and immediately reach up to fix it and his hood. “I guess I was wrong about Gavin being the next one down,” he said mildly, but Geoff could tell Michael’s respawn had hit Ryan hard. His shoulders and smile were tight and he didn’t move from where he stood at Michael’s head, one hand resting protectively on his shoulder.

“Are you okay? Do you need anything?” Jack asked, looking at Michael worriedly. “I could get you some food or something, to help with the headache. There might be a potion that could help, too, if you’d like.”

Michael chuckled and shook his head, waving a hand at Jack dismissively. “I’m fine, Jack. A headache is nothing! I’m now even better off than those two,” he said, pointing to Ray and Gavin. “Maybe in better condition than you guys! I’m good.”

“I’m glad you’re okay, Michael,” Geoff finally said, words and breath coming back to him.

Michael looked over at Geoff and grinned, giving him a thumbs up. “Of course! But next time, you all are the ones exploring the fucking cave in a storm. I’m not doing that again.”


End file.
